The Many Faces of Anti-Evolution

Finding online resources on anti-evolutionary stances is easy. One
common characteristic is that anti-evolutionary proponents have
embraced the technologies of the Internet to broadly distribute their
message. As the links below will show, many anti-evolutionary
organizations spend considerable effort in presenting web pages and
multimedia offerings.

The original and still most well-known form of
anti-evolutionary activism holds that the earth was created by fiat by
God less than 20,000 years ago. There are many different factions and
organizations which espouse a YEC stance. These almost invariably
invoke the same set of anti-evolutionary arguments. The various
factions differ in how much "evolution" they can tolerate, but all of
them label the tolerable amount of evolution they can stomach
"microevolution".

Proponents of YEC

Go to any search engine and you will find a bewildering number of web
sites which argue a YEC stance. There are various places that list a
large number of web sites. Here, I am going to list some of the ones
that I consider to be most representative of the genre.

With headquarters in Santee, California, this organization goes back
more than three decades to a split in the membership of the American
Scientific Affiliation. Originally touting their stance as "scientific
creationism", they have since modified their preferred terminology to
"creation science". The ICR now has a multi-million dollar budget per
year, which they use for a number of ongoing efforts, including weekly
radio shows and at least three separately titled periodical
publications which they distribute at no cost. Originally headed by
Henry Madison Morris, the ICR is now run by John Morris. The ICR has
over most of its existence been considered to be the single most
consistent and vociferous proponent of the YEC stance. However, this
may be changing. To outsiders, the makeup of the ICR seems to be
graying considerably, and it appears that many younger YEC proponents
(and former ICR staff) are choosing to associate with other YEC
organizations, such as "Answers In Genesis".

Originally established in Australia, Answers In Genesis has
gone multi-national with a site in Kentucky, where they plan to build
a theme park. AIG is run by the pair of Ken Ham and Gary E. Parker,
both formerly associated with the ICR.

The NCSE opposes anti-evolutionary activity throughout the United
States and Canada. Although operating on a minuscule budget compared
to the combined financial might of the anti-evolutionary
organizations, the NCSE has efficiently - and often quietly - quelled
various outbreaks of anti-evolutionary fervor with a combination of
leveraging the effort of local volunteers and providing comprehensive
information on anti-evolutionary claims and their rebuttals.

Originally a collection of posts made on the Usenet
talk.origins newsgroup, the Talk.Origins Archive has grown into the
single most comprehensive collection of rebuttals of YEC arguments
available online. Computer scientist Brett Vickers operates the site,
which features excellent layouts, efficient search facilities, and a
superb feedback system. The site is maintained and expanded on
volunteer effort, with authors (this author included) contributing
"Frequently Asked Questions" texts on a wide variety of topics.

Evolution, Anti-Evolution, and SciCre

This is my page on combatting "scientific creationism" or
SciCre. I list a number of common SciCre arguments and their
rebuttals.

The Old-Earth creationists differ from the Young-Earth Creationists
in the obvious way: they accept (more or less) the dates proposed in
mainstream science for the age of the earth and the universe. However,
Old-Earth Creationists still adhere to a modified doctrine of special
creation. Instead of species, the nebulous words "kinds" or "baramin"
are used to refer to the inclusiveness of a lineage which must be
created by God.

The political home of "Intelligent Design"
anti-evolutionism. The DI CRSC is an extraordinarily well-funded
organization, offering fellowships paying ~$40K a year to many
anti-evolutionists. Its ties to the religious right, and particularly
those elements of the religious right that seek to install a
theocratic government in the USA are something the fellows of the CRSC
are quick to digress away from. The CRSC is actively pursuing a
strategy called the "Wedge", which seeks to displace and eliminate
materialism as a philosophical component of Western culture. The
"wedge" strategy seeks to attack what the CRSC fellows see as the
weakest point in western science, evolutionary biology, and especially
Darwinian mechanisms in evolutionary biology. This is not their goal,
but merely a stepping-stone to their goal, which is the complete
removal of both philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism
from the practice of science.

The ARN site is an online spin-off of the old "Students for Origins
Research" group. It presents a less directly political face for ID
proponents than the DI CRSC, but features mostly the very same group
of activists.

Michael Polanyi Center at Baylor University

Fall 1999 to December 2000. The MPC consisted of Bruce Gordon
and William A. Dembski, both Fellows of the DI CRSC. The MPC
represented yet another outworking of the DI CRSC "wedge" strategy,
part of which calls for the establishment of ID centers in academic
institutions. The MPC was very controversial at Baylor, and an
external review committee report initiated a series of events leading
to the removal of William Dembski as director of the MPC and the
naming of Bruce Gordon as interim director. The same review committee
recommended the the Polanyi name not be used in association with the
Center or the arguments made by Dembski and Gordon. The MPC has since
been disbanded and its elements incorporated into Baylor's Institute
for Faith and Learning.